This doesn't count. I'm nowhere near as loosened up as I'd hoped to be.

I'm going to be so pissed at myself in 40 years, when I go back to read this shit. Such an important and formative time in my life, and I'm staying so silent. It's like I expect to remember all this shit. Fuck, I'll be lucky to remember my own damn name in 40 years, or how to not piss my pants.

But what can I say? What can I say that hasn't already been said a million times, or been censored a million times?

I'm stuck here, you know. Trying to invent a middle ground where none exists. Loving what I hate, and hating what I love. Everything I ever wanted, blended with everything I ever avoided. My life is a grotesque mixture of dread and hope, of fear and desire, of love and hate. I'm trying to muddle through, but really just surviving, and only barely at that.

This would all be so very interesting, if only I could step aside for a while. If only I could be objective for a while. I feel things, and they're not true. They're not even close to being true, but I not only don't care, I refuse to see. Feelings trump facts, every single time. Faced with the absolute worst, I continue to see only the absolute best. Why is that? Why is it so different this time? Seriously, has there truly never been another?

Why am I so incapable of seeing the damn truth when it's been right in front of my face for all these years?

Fuck if I know. It just is what it is. I just am what I am.

Years ago, I wrote that, if I could step back and take a good look at myself, I'd laugh my ass off. Maybe that's still true, but I bet there would be an awful lot of tears as well. I'm just stuck. I don't know what to do, or if I should do anything at all.

Some things never change.

Like I said, this doesn't count. This isn't even close.